FRAMESTORE GET INTO GEAR WITH EDIFIS

FRAMESTORE, London's leading high-end post-production facility, have purchased an Edifis Gearbox format-independent signal store and interface.
The disk-based Gearbox is being used for fully non-compressed recording and playout and as an online archive serving Framestore's edit suites
The Gearbox chosen by Framestore has 12 hours of internal uncompressed magnetic disk storage combining high reliability, considerably lower maintenance costs than VTRs and rapid random-access searching. It currently mirrors, and will shortly replace, D1 digital VTRs which are now over 10 years old. Installed in Framestore's master control room, it is operated from the quality control suite.
Framestore Technical Director Steve Prescott explained the reasoning which led to the Gearbox purchase: "The shift from analogue to digital audio and video formats was only a first phase. Television is now so closely integrated into computer technology that we wish to see all future equipment installed at Framestore capable of handling any digital file format. Gearbox eliminates the delays waiting for tape to shuttle between one sequence and another and also overcomes the very high cost of maintaining D1 VTRs."
Edifis Sales Director Richard Lilley added: "We designed Gearbox to bridge the gap between video and data and it does exactly that. The disk drives in Edifis equipment have extremely long working lives, can be monitored as they age, and are inexpensive to replace." (GB)